U.N. investigators said on Monday that Israel and Palestinian militant groups committed grave abuses of international humanitarian law during the 2014 Gaza conflict that may amount to war crimes.

A Palestinian has stabbed an Israeli paramilitary policeman at an entrance to the Old City of East Jerusalem and was then shot by the policeman, police said.

“Israel needs a US president who attempts to guide it away from occupation, and who isn’t afraid to criticize it while showing empathy to both Israeli and Palestinian children — the way President Barack Obama is acting,” writes Uri Savir.

“Obama’s attitudes toward Islam clearly stem from his personal interactions with Muslims,” writes Israeli MK and former ambassador to the US Michael Oren. “I could imagine how a child raised by a Christian mother might see himself as a natural bridge between her two Muslim husbands. I could also speculate how that child’s abandonment by those men could lead him, many years later, to seek acceptance by their co-religionists.”

Former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren says he pressured Random House to publish his controversial new book “Ally” now, rather than during book season in September or October, because “Israel is at a fateful juncture” before the deadline of the Iran talks and the vote on the French initiative on Palestine in the Security Council.

Remand until the end of legal proceedings is the rule, not the exception, for most Palestinians charged in Israel’s military courts in the West Bank, except for those tried for traffic violations.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has urged Israel and Palestine to return to the negotiating table quickly, warning that the stalemate in the peace process risked setting the conflict “ablaze”.

“A few weeks ago, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit launched its own Facebook page,” writes Amjad Iraqi. “As the tide of international opinion and pressureincreasingly turns against Israel’s occupation — a trend that is being felt from government halls to university campuses to the media — COGAT’s Facebook page serves as an online tool to help state employees, ordinary Israeli citizens and their supporters present a more positive and “benevolent” image of Israel’s control of the occupied territories.”

As the Egyptian army intensifies its campaign to destroy the border tunnels from southern Gaza, many still rely on smuggling goods for work, as no better jobs are available.

Tony Blair met Khaled Meshaal, the leader of Hamas, twice in Doha to negotiate a plan to end the eight-year-long siege of Gaza, Middle East Eye has learned.

On a visit to Gaza Strip, Egyptian-born writer Khaled Diab discovers that despite hardship caused by Israel, Egypt’s siege is the more emotionally painful one. ‘Why is Egypt doing this to us?’ Gazans want to know.

The Palestinian Authority has confiscated the funds of a nonprofit organization headed by former prime minister Salam Fayyad, Palestinian media reported on Monday.

In this interview with Al-Monitor, Gaza’s Deputy Minister of Interior, Kamel Abu Madi, speaks out on who should be held accountable for the recent bombings.